Recent Billy Slater and Josh Papalii incidents far from the tip of the iceberg for Kangaroos

THERE was the time AC/DC once complained to management at a French hotel about the noise coming from the rooms of the Kangaroos. And the time Australian players rushed into a bar to fight the moody members of an English band.

The 3am dispute between a Manchester man and Billy Slater outside a nightclub is just one more instance in which off-field action on Australian Rugby League tours have been more newsworthy than what's happened in the Tests.

On the 1978 Kangaroo tour, a member of The Jam, Paul Weller, viciously glassed the face of Jim Caldwell, the team manager from Queensland, in a Leeds bar. Kangaroo Larry Corowa ran to defend the bloodied Caldwell, was punched from behind himself and raced into a nearby bar to get teammates to provide reinforcements for the brawl that ensued.

One member of The Jam landed in hospital with broken ribs and another was reported at the time to have been charged with assault.

News_Image_File: Band ACDC on tour bus in 1976. Picture: Gary Graham

Senior Australian manager Peter Moore told police that while he could guarantee the behaviour of his players for the rest of the night, he could not guarantee it the day after.

So what was left of The Jam were kicked out of their hotel rooms.

It's a source of wonder that footballers "get picked'' as often as they do. But some blokes just love to have something to boast about to their mates, don't they?

As the Kangaroos are in Manchester on this tour and not Leeds, a football city and not a rugby league one, there's every chance the galoot in the nightclub queue did not realise Slater was an international footballer who can handle himself.

News_Rich_Media: Kangaroos fullback Billy Slater speaks publicly for the first time since he was attacked at a Manchester nightclub.

"You'd think because I'm 6 foot 3 and known for my aggression on the field that people wouldn't want to mess with me in public,'' marvelled Gorden Tallis, showing himself a man with a game plan in his book "Gordie's Tales''.

"(When I was a player, I'd say) if you're that tough, you should be getting paid for it instead of having a fight here. And then when you're getting paid (for playing league) I'll punch the shit out of you and can't be sued for it.

"No one ever did test that out. I've never been in a fight off the field.''

News_Rich_Media: Billy Slater filmed Greg Bird giving his best rendition of Heaven is a Place on Earth on Instagram during a night out in Manchester.

While some of the most memorable Kangaroo tour stories over the years involve violence, some have none at all.

The mental picture of the members of AC/DC, purveyors of "Highway To Hell'' and all the rest, having their rest disturbed on a tour stop in the south of France by the racket from Aussie footballers in other rooms is one to savour.

From 1967, there was the "man in the bowler hat'' tale 1967 which was pinned on John Raper for 20 years until he wearied of it.

Ultimately Dennis Manteit admitted in an interview for Ian Heads' book The Kangaroos that while the most sensational part of the story was wrong - it was "ridiculous'' that anyone could walk down a town's street in a north of England winter wearing nothing but a bowler hat - he had taken part in a floor show at the hotel one night.

Heads wrote that Manteit wore a bowler hat, a team tie, an overcoat and nothing else, throwing the overcoat wide at the end of the act.

That was the tour Raper brought a jukebox into the hotel to create some fun. He also imported crates of beer for parties when the pub's prices got too high.

But at its end, the ARL docked each player a sum towards payment of a $700 bill for damage at their inadequate Yorkshire hotel, which had precisely two bathrooms.

News_Image_File: John Raper with the Kangaroos.

The 1990 Kangaroos racked up a total of $11,600 in hotel damages and a headline "Aussie Yobs Riot in Bar''. In his book, Ben Elias wrote one teammate "went crazy ... cornered the barman and clobbered him''.

In the 1980s, Kangaroo tourists would pool resources and buy a bomb to drive around during their visit. These were treated with such love and care that one on the 1982 tour was eventually good for nothing else than being pushed into a canal behind the team's Leeds hotel.

Police divers were summoned by a member of the public, alarmed that someone might be in the wreckage.

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